No one seems to know for certain how well the Virginia General Assembly’s lawmakers and leprechauns will fare this session in their growing searches for pots of revenue gold in the once small but rapidly growing field of legal gambling.

Virginia, known to be a slow adopter of new forms of gambling, seems to have more legislators than ever this year chasing gold in sports betting, casino gambling, horse track betting and other forms of tax revenue.
 
The Old Dominion so far has largely avoided the rush to add gambling to diversify its state tax portfolio. Decades ago, it took Virginia 11 years to pass a lottery referendum that was quickly embraced by the public once voters were allowed to decide the issue in 1987.

Now gambling advocates argue that other states and Washington, D.C., are eating Virginia’s lunch.
Virginians are throwing money at games of chance, casinos and other voluntary forms of taxation, such as sports betting, which was just legalized in the District of Columbia.

Residents of Alexandria can take a water taxi to a spiffy 2-year-old casino that Maryland allowed to be built within view across the Potomac.
Virginia is one of only 10 states without any type of casino gambling. Nearby states are regularly launching sports betting and casino ventures that could draw more Virginians’ gambling dollars.

So Virginia’s 140 state legislators are examining new ways that gambling may produce new tax gold through growing numbers of bills that once would have had slimmer odds of winning passage.

One problem faced by all the various gambling revenue advocates is that various gaming proposals are in sometimes heated competition with each other.
Some legislators want the state lottery to run sports betting and grab 10 to 15 percent or more of the take off the top.
Others note that the lottery has a conflict of interest, given its games and the sports games that also could attract betting dollars. That could create the kind of conflicts that the state’s wine industry would feel burdened by if the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which runs the state’s liquor business, also ran the wine industry.

Del. Marcus Simon, D-Falls Church, is sponsoring a unique sports gambling bill this year that would establish a sports betters’ bill of rights as well as tap the burgeoning industry for state tax revenue.

“I am not a big gambler,” said the delegate now in his third term representing Fairfax County and Falls Church. “I think it’s a big new source [of revenue] we are losing out on.”
His bill of rights for those using approved sports betting apps to gamble on games, while earning at least a 10 percent take for state tax coffers, would ban marketing to those under age 18, allow betters to set monthly limits on their wagering, and have knowledge of betting odds and how they are set.
Simon is not giving great odds on passage of any legislation authorizing gambling this year, including his own bill, House Bill 2210.

“If I had to put odds on it, I’d say it was a long shot,” perhaps 2-1 against passage, he said.

“There’s a good chance these bills will get referred to a study commission,” Simon said, noting that Gov. Ralph Northam has advocated the study route and put money in his budget for it.

Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, is offering a different approach for sports betting revenue.

Petersen is proposing an entirely new Virginia Sports Betting Department to be created in Senate Bill 1238, along with a Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund and a Sports Betting Operations Fund, to regulate sports betting. Of course Petersen’s measure would regulate bets on games in a way to take 10 percent off the top.

“I don’t see what there is to study,” said Petersen, who is in his 18th year in the General Assembly. “Gambling is one of the oldest activities known to man. Other states are moving ahead.”

Petersen said he believes sports betting is more palatable to more Virginians than casinos, “but that’s just me.” His bill would allow sports betting at race tracks and other site-specific gambling facilities once they are approved in a local referendum. “It’s more oriented towards getting people out of the house and into entertainment.”

He believes that casinos, once approved in referendums, also would want to host sports betting.
Meanwhile, Native American tribes are trying to work out differences amongst themselves, as well as with horse track betting advocates, about who should have rights to build casinos, and where.
 
The Pamunkey tribe is pursuing plans to build a $700 million waterfront casino in Norfolk. Another group, the Nansemond tribe, objects to the Pamunkey claim of historical ties to Norfolk and says the city is in its historical territory.

Municipalities such as Portsmouth, Danville and Bristol also want the right to build their own casinos for many types of gamblers to visit and pony up tax revenue.

Legislation to allow casinos in cities whose officials want them calls for a local referendum and voter approval before anything could be built.
“A casino war has begun,” the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported Jan. 16, outlining competing plans for the gambling palaces in Norfolk and Portsmouth.

Two Hampton Roads legislators, Sen. Lynwood Lewis, D-Accomack, and Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach, are sponsoring legislation to allow the Pamunkey tribe to operate a casino in Norfolk.

With many pushing casinos, pony tracks and betting on sports games of various types, other more wary legislators may just prevail with another idea: study the daylights out of which forms of gambling should Virginia sponsor or allow as state and local tax cash cows.

Northam and some state lawmakers may prefer to take time to study all of the options for a state that, in the past, has limited gambling to horse racing and the state lottery.
Former House Minority Leader David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, agrees with the need for a study. “There are many questions to be answered before we authorize casino gambling in Virginia, not the least of which is how it will be administered,” Toscano said. “Most likely, we will have to create an entirely new commission, much like the ABC, to administer it. I think it should be studied in more detail, and a plan should be in place, before we start siting these operations anywhere in the Commonwealth

Petersen was asked what the odds are that his sports betting bill would pass this year.
“99.4 percent,” the state senator said. “But don’t bet on it.”

Gibson is communications director and senior researcher at the University of Virginia’s Cooper Center for Public Service. The opinions expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the Cooper Center.

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